Floating Words (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9784907359553)

Floating Words is the latest book by Yoko Danno. The first part consists of 'Grace Notes' - two short, graceful, renga-like sequences and a single haiku. This is followed by a series of longer poems featuring hungry, angry or compassionate gods and goddesses, draughts of pure lake water, green tea and wine, and dishes of ( among other things ) tofu, vegetables, sashimi and citrus-flavored miso. This section culminates in a powerful prose-poem concerning the loss of her son, who died young in a Himalayan mountaineering accident in 1986.

The second part of the book is a complete translation of the classic fifteenth-century hundred-link renga Minase Sangin Hyakuin by the poets Sōgi, Shōhaku and Sōchō, widely acknowledged to be the greatest masterpiece of the hyakuin genre. Yoko Danno has translated it following the syllabic count and has provided an introduction, notes, and helpful translations of the classic poems from the Imperial Anthologies that the three Minase poets are alluding to in their contributions to the sequence.